Thank You Elsie's Mum

Discussion in 'Fantastic Finds' started by Bonzo Dog, Jul 26, 2015.

  1. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    A contact alerted me to this postcard about 8 years ago, which was up for sale on E-Bay. The asking price was a whopping £30 and the seller was of the "that's the price, take it or leave it" type. I left it but was able to download the image of the message.

    "Dear Little Elsie" is a 3rd cousin twice removed and the younger sister of Ruth and Eddie. Elsie and her family had already been hunted down but the crucial piece of evidence was that she had an aunt named Mrs Gardner. It didn't take long to establish that she was a paternal aunt Jane, and she had a cousin of similar age with the same name, who is more closely related to me.

    Another "either or" bit the dust, but without me having to buy marriage certificates.


    Elsie Deason Postcard.jpg
     
  2. Doug

    Doug Administrator. The Main Man. Staff Member

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    Fantastic. Shame the asking price was out of your limit.
     
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  3. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    At least I do have the next best thing, a scanned image. And that was free. :)
     
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  4. gillyflower

    gillyflower Always caring about others

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    It is good you have scanned images. It is so sad when people try to make money this way. What happened to common decency? :)
     
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  5. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    There are no records to suggest that "Dear Little Elsie" (Elsie Mary Deason, born 1909) married. She died after 1984 which means I can't access the GRO records. Could SKS please look this up for me.

    I am also led to believe that her sister Ruth Deason, born 1904, never married and died in Barrow in Furness in 1984, another plea for a look up.
     
  6. Daft Bat

    Daft Bat Administrator. Chief cook & bottle washer! Staff Member

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    Elsie:
    The only death that I can find indicates that she was born in 1905, rather than 1909.
    Elsie DEASON, born 6th July 1905, died Barrow in Furness district, March quarter 1980, volume 1, page 0155

    Ruth:
    Ruth DEASON, born 24th March 1904, died Barrow in Furness district, June quarter 1984, volume 1, page 47
    Ruth was buried 25th April at the Priory Church of St Mary, Cartmel
     
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  7. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    That's a puzzler. Elsie's birth was registered in the September quarter of 1909 - Ulverston 8e 725, so wonder if the 9 has been misread as 5. FreeBMD has no death registrations for anyone named Deason, let alone Elsie, 1975-1983 but the 1980 registration for Elsie is on Family Search. Must count my pennies to see if I can afford to order a copy of this certificate right away.

    According to a 1911 census listed on Family Search an Elsie Mary Deason was living in Cartmel but she was only 1. Heaven only knows where she's popped up from.
     
  8. Huncamunca

    Huncamunca The Knowledgeable One

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    Could this be a different person? There is an Elsie Ireland marrying a William E. Deason in the Ulverston district in the September quarter of 1933.

    So far I've had no luck finding an alternative, though. FreeBMD's coverage of deaths looks fairly complete up to mid-1973 but very patchy thereafter:
    http://www.
    freebmd.org.uk/progressD.shtml#y1970

    Ancestry now has England & Wales deaths up to 2013 (the ones for 2007-2013 are in a separate database). I haven't spotted Elsie yet. Did she marry? Emigrate? Call herself Mary instead of Elsie?

    Wish I could keep looking but it is Monday again already, and time to get to work. :(
     
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  9. Daft Bat

    Daft Bat Administrator. Chief cook & bottle washer! Staff Member

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    Good thinking @Huncamunca That is always a possibility. :)
     
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  10. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    AND, there is a birth registration for Elsie Ireland in the September quarter of 1905 - Lancaster 8e 711. William E Deason is in my file with his line traced back 4 generations, but nothing to suggest a close link with Elsie's family.
     
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  11. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    Elsie Deason's death certificate has just arrived, and she was indeed married to William E Deason - he registered the death. That's a gap filled in this particular Deason branch, but whatever happened to Elsie Mary, born in 1909?
     
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  12. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    This is one heck of a long shot but could be worth the £9.25 for a marriage certificate. According to GRO records an Elsie Deacon became Mrs Clark when she married in the Ulverston registration district. There is a death registration for Elsie Clark in the same district, and she just happens to have been born in the same year quarter as Elsie Mary Deason.
     
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  13. Huncamunca

    Huncamunca The Knowledgeable One

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    I did think of a new line of enquiry, to see if Ruth Deason left a will, in case that might shed light on where her sister was. Unfortunately my plan was foiled by the completely rubbish probate search on the gov.uk website. For the name Deason or ones near it in the alphabet, the pre-1996 probate search couldn't find the right pages at all.:headbang::headbang::headbang:

    The post-1996 search seems to be a bit less cranky so I thought I'd check in case Elsie was there. You can only search one year at a time, which seems ridiculous. But perhaps it was worth perservering because it came up with an Elsie Mary Deason who died 11 August 2000, probate date: 3 July 2001. Registry: London (It says 'Document type: grant only' which I suppose means it is just a grant of letters of administration.)

    I can't see a corresponding death registration in England or Wales in 2000, so did she die somewhere else? Unfortunately without knowing Elsie's age we can't tell whether she's your elusive Elsie.

    Perhaps worth getting hold of a copy of the grant in case it says where she died or has an address for her.
     
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  14. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    Thank you me duck, C|:-) I'm not spending £9.25 on the marriage certificate as the postcard that started all this off (there were 3 others in the set, written by her brother Eddie) appeared on E-Bay in 2002 and may have been sold to the postcard dealer by whoever was granted probate. Have ordered a copy of the grant, so fingers crossed.
     
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  15. Huncamunca

    Huncamunca The Knowledgeable One

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    Good luck! I hope the mystery will soon be solved. In the meantime here's a badge for you:

    Where's Elsie badge.jpg
     
  16. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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  17. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    Either the fates are smiling on me or the mother and father of all coincidences has been found instead.

    The Administration Papers show that Elsie died intestate in Dublin, where she was said to be domiciled, and that Probate had been granted to Jacqueline Deason of Rye, East Sussex.

    An unclaimed estates company site shows that a Jacqueline Deason, spinster, died in Hastings, East Sussex in 2007 and that she had been born in 1941 in Lancaster. There is just one birth registration, which gives her mother's maiden name as Bond. Hilda Bond married Edward Deason 1940 in Lancaster. There is a Lancaster death registration for Edward Deason born June 1907.

    If his marriage certificate shows he was the son of Edward and that he was 33 OTA then bingo. He has to be Elsie's brother. :cool:
     
  18. Huncamunca

    Huncamunca The Knowledgeable One

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    That's got to be 'dear little Elsie', hasn't it? 8(:-)

    I've been having a little trundle around looking for Dublin records online. So far the only sighting of Elsie is in some Dublin City electoral rolls which can be searched and viewed online here:

    http://
    databases.dublincity.ie/

    You'll find an Elsie Deason listed in a couple of the most recent rolls available there (1960s). Her location, very near a hospital, may be significant: did she work there?
     
  19. Bonzo Dog

    Bonzo Dog Still the Mad Scientist?

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    She most definitely is our girl :) and it looks as though she worked at the hospital as a member of medical staff. She was still living at the same address when she died in 2000 aged 91 so it seems that the hospital looked after their retirees, unless of course she never retired. :sceptical:
     
  20. Huncamunca

    Huncamunca The Knowledgeable One

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    I have a new theory about what Elsie was doing in Dublin.

    From Google, 67 Adelaide Road was once called Aynsome House and was the address of Aynsome Laboratories (Ireland) Ltd, incorporated 17 January 1956.

    The Chemical Age vol. 74 (1956), snippets of which are on Google Books, says of Aynsome Laboratories (Dublin) Ltd that it was a 'Private company . . . registered in Dublin. Capital £5000 in £1 shares. To carry on the business of analytical and consulting chemists etc.'

    Now Google tells me that there is an Aynsome near Cartmel. The 'Aynsome Agricultural Experimental Station, chemical laboratory and model dairy' was built in 1901 for J.S. and T.M. Remington (from ref. to architects' records at Cumbria Record Office). In 1905 the partnership between Thomas Machell Remington and John Stewart Remington was dissolved. T.M. Remington was going to carry on the business of Agriculturalist at Aynsome Farm, while J.S. Remington was to carry on the business of Agricultural Chemist and Analyst at the Laboratories at Aynsome (see London Gazette).

    Searching for Deason in the Irish Times archive finds an article from 1985. Without being a subscriber I can only see the very beginning of it, but enough to tell that a 77 year old Elsie Deason was stabbed in a laboratory. :(
     
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